


Wishes of Sunset & Moondust

by prettymacca



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Boys In Love, Fluff, John Lennon - Freeform, Kissing, Lots of kissing, M/M, McLennon, Mutual Pining, Pining, Prompt Fic, Romance, Royalty, i dont know what else to tag, lots of pining, paul mccartney - Freeform, prince and table boy, teeth rotting fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettymacca/pseuds/prettymacca
Summary: Sunset in your eyes. Moondust in the lining of your skin. What hope did I ever have? This is the story of stable boy in love with a beautiful prince.





	Wishes of Sunset & Moondust

_Sunset in your eyes. Moondust in the lining of your skin. What hope,_

_did I ever have?_

He had been in love with the prince of sunset eyes and moonlit skin for as long as he could remember, his sweetshop window, wishing for an impossible dream. He was but a stable boy by the name of John, just John, working in the dirt, and longing for the stars.

He remembered, still, the laughing face of the prince that day long gone, back when he had those cherub cheeks flushed with infancy, and he was so small everyone else was but legs. That day, he had heard a laugh in one of the stables, bell bright, and was drawn to it. A boy was there, patting a horse and giggling as the great beast nuzzled his palms splayed out over a pearled coat. John did not know yet who this boy with candied lips was, and so, he spoke to him.

“Hi!”

“Oh, hello!” The boy answered, his voice high and clear. He smiled, and John smiled back. Charmed.

And then they where running out of the stables, chasing each other through the palace gardens, laughing, pretending to be pirate and sailor, toppling over each other and onto the flower bushes.

“I’ll come back to play.” The boy had squealed, after, throwing his little arms around the John. And the stable boy held the prince, tight.

He did not return.

John still saw him, sometimes, dreaming with his eyes open. And in his dreams, the prince who was not yet a prince, played in the sky and the stars tangled up in his hair. It was years later, when he came back.

The prince came again, and this time, John knew who he was. He tilted his head to watch John, birdlike, and a lock of hair fell to his eyes, black as a raven’s wing. And his eyes themselves— they were green and hazel at the same time, like sunset above blades of grass, and overflowing with lashes so dark they looked oiled. John knew young princes were not meant to be beautiful; handsome, yes, dashing, perhaps— but prince Paul was. He was beautiful, and John found he had forgotten to breathe. Just as the prince had forgotten about him. There was no sign of recognition in his sunset eyes, But then again, why would the sun remember a dying star?

“Hello.” He said. His lips were red-bitten.

John blinked, tried for a smile. “Your highness.” He bowed. His heart beat, frantically.“Is there anything you need help with?”

The prince kept watching him. He drew the flesh of his bottom lip between his teeth, and bit down, softly. John watched as it was let go, curling back into place, gently, the colour waning back into carmine.

He asked for a horse. John’s hands shook as he handed him a mare, coat glossy black as the pelts of river cats, and lined in silver fur.

“Show me how to mount.” The prince ordered, though his face was kind.

So he did.

The prince was a fast learner. John missed, after, the moments when he could fit Paul against his body, feeling the sinews of shoulders against his breastbone. Then, wrapping his arms around his waist, as his calloused fingers gave up the reigns to smooth hands. Hearing him laugh as the mare trotted, and then when she began to run, asking John to hold him tighter, please, lest he would fall.

The lessons stopped.

The prince could mount, and could mount well. And yet, he kept seeing John. As he walked through the gardens, stride unhindered by the swish of robes, he called John to his side to help him fend of boredom. Going to look for the mare, in preparation for a hunting trip or a race, the prince called him. Visiting him for godstars knew why, as the only explanation he gave was how tired he was of the palace and the courtiers.

John could not escape him. He was sun-drunk, addicted to him. Every smile was a drop of warm honey, every touch witchlight that bewitched him further. His heart ached, begged for relief on those rare days when the prince did not go looking for him. And like an addict, when his drug returned, he felt the high of it, the way his breathing caught and his heart sped up, wild and soft, like the chaos of moth wings.

One day, when the prince was celebrating his twenty first birthday, he vanished from the party.

And _oh_ , what a party it was.

The music drifted downhill, lilting lutes and cadenced guiras, lyrics speaking of desire and forbidden loves. The women’s dresses were flowers blooming and closing up, dancing to the music in a flurry of lace and the colours of a meadow. Couples strung together, shoulders and hips winding, men spinning their partners away, and then whisking them back close, skirts slashing the air as they twirled.

Still, Paul had chosen to go look for him.

They ran to the forest, giggling like the little boys they had been, once upon a time, fingers entwined. They reached a clearing where fireflies throbbed golden, as ripened stars falling from the sky, and flowers dreamt themselves suns. 

John picked one up, and tucked it into Paul’s hair. He blushed. John watched it happen. The way his cheeks budded crimson, roseate warmth cast golden with the glow pulsing from the flower. He wanted to kiss that blush down his cheeks and into his neck, see where it ended.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” He asked.

“I wanted to celebrate with _you_.” Paul whispered, and his words blew breath over John’s face. He had not realized they were standing this close. Close enough to see the dusting of freckles on his nose, even in the dim light. He was suddenly very aware of his skin, the way it tingled and pleaded to touch Paul’s.

Rather, he curled his hands into fists. Not in anger, no. It was the sign of someone sorely tempted, and unwilling to give in.

So he watched Paul, and Paul watched him, beneath the starlight, beneath the moon shaped into a smile.

“I wanted to invite _you_.” Paul said. His breath smelt of wine and cake icing.

“It’s okay, your highness.” John answered. He felt lightheaded.

“Please don’t call me that. I’m Paul, just Paul.”

“Okay just Paul.” John answered, and his eyes twinkled. “Can I call you Paulie?”

“God— of course you can, Johnny, of course.”

And John smiled at him, a wrecked smile.

Paul spoke again.

“I tried to get my father to invite you, but he would not hear of it.” He darkened his voice. “So I came to you, instead.”

John’s gaze flitted to Paul’s rosebud lips, and he wondered at their colour, at how they might taste and feel between his own.

Paul saw him watching.

“Do you want a taste?” He asked, and his voice was velvet. It was the first time John wondered at how it might sound laced around song.

He looked up into his eyes. “What?”

Paul smiled, and his smile was a promise. He cradled John’s face, and kissed him.

_At last_.

It was rose petals and gossamer, the taste of wine and the feel of soft, soft skin, faces gliding together as lips tasted, tentative and shy, merely flirting with the other, and both realised they had not known of the wonder of lips.

But then it was not just lips, and the wonder of them. John’s tongue, curious, slipped out and he taste those lips, once. Sweet as poured honey, dizzying as iced wine. The parted for him, for him only, and John heard himself groan, deepening the kiss.

It was the wonder of curious tongues and teeth venturing out to nibble, softly, and yet nothing was better than the wonder of _hands_ , hands and arms and fingers everywhere, John’s arms draped around Paul’s waist, drawing him close, so close, as though to melt with him, _into_ him. They might find the limit to melting, then, together. If there was, but John hoped there was not as he heard Paul moan, ever so softly.

“Don’t stop kissing me, don’t ever stop, Johnny—” Paul begged, breathing hard.

“Wasn’t planning to, love.” John murmured, and it was true— he could not stop kissing Paul, and so he kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, vicious kisses, kissing him breathless, senseless, until the prince was shaking in his arms. Not with fear, but passion.

“Stars—” Paul gasped, and he began to press hot little kisses to John’s jaw, his cheek, his mouth— and John was hazy with desire, drunk on his closeness and the heat of his skin, and the sounds he made; because Paul was the sun and John was Icarus, and would fly too close, far too close— but what sweeter death could there be than by the kiss of sunlight? He was going to die kissing Paul. And he found he did not care. 

“Johnny— oh _John_ —”

“Hmmm, yes love?”

“John I—” He could not stop kissing John long enough to speak.

“Mmhm?”

“I need— ohhh, stars… John—” He tried again, breaking off the kiss. John listed after him, trailing him, a leaf spun on a river current. He captured his lips again, and kissed him, one, two, three, four, almost eight times before Paul, giggling, pulled away again.

“Mm, Johnny, hear me out—” He spoke through a laugh.

“Paul, oh _Paulie_ , my love, I c-can’t stop, can’t…” John said, and his voice was wrecked. He buried his head into Paul’s throat and drew the white skin into his mouth, and suckled softly. Paul arched his neck, a silent plea that sent waves of heat pooling between John’s legs.

“Johnny, listen—” He managed, goosebumps chasing in his skin at the feel of open lipped, wet kisses trailing down his neck.

“I love you John.”

John stilled at those words. The glistening shape of his lips curved up Paul’s neck, blooming bruises as purple carnations. 

“Look at me.” Paul whispered.

And John did. 

Paul’s eyes glistened, like his neck. 

“I love you. Stars, I’m in love with you, so in love with you… ” He pressed butterfly kisses all over John’s face. 

“Paulie, I—”

“Shhh, let me finish, darling.” Paul cooed, his face brimming with so much adoration John’s heart _ached_. 

“Four years, Johnny. Four years, and I think I’ve loved you since the beginning. God, what you do to me…” There was an edge of insanity to his voice. “I’m so in love with you I can’t _breathe_.” He said, and tucked his sweet, sweet head into John’s curls. John felt him breathe in, and tightened his hold, impossibly so, around that crescent waist. 

“You can speak now.” Paul said, and there was an undercurrent of a smile in the words. 

“I— your highness, Prince Paul, Paulie, my love, I—” John began, stuttered. His heart would not stop beating— fast and irregular, like a pair of trapped wings. “I’ve loved you my whole life. Since that day, when I was seven years old and you came and…” The words caught, briefly, in his throat. “And we played pirates and sailors.” 

“Oh _darling_ —”

“Then we meet, ten years later, and you’re beautiful and charming and funny, the prince, the belle of the palace, and I’m but a stable boy, loving you from a dream, and I—” He pause, took a deep breath. “I am in love with you. I love you so much I cannot even wrap my mind around it. I only know I love you, and always will.” 

“My love—”

“But, your highness—”

“Paul.”

“Paulie.” John felt him smile into his hair. “Paulie, how can a stable boy ever be with a prince?” 

Paul looked at him with those eyes of his, dreamy and obscure, a song half translated into a beautiful new chord, and John knew he would love him forever. 

And when the prince smiled, he felt set alight. 

“Like this.” Paul said, and pushed him to the ground, laughing, the sound wild and free, as they rolled through the grass beneath the starlight, until he was splayed below John, glowing and giggling, and his sunset eyes filled with so much love John could not breathe. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you.” 

And John knew, then, that he had dreamt himself wings and flied too close to the sun. But who was he, to say no to sunlight? So the stable boy kissed his love into the prince’s lips and neck, and every inch of skin, beneath the starlight, beneath the moon shaped into a smile.


End file.
